Making Sense of the Johannesburg Type II Partnerships

Franchising Global Governance: Making Sense of the Johannesburg Type II Partnerships Liliana B. Andonova and Marc A. Levy Introduction • Participation in the WSSD partnerships is uneven and As preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable mirrors rather than challenges prevailing patterns. Dis- Development (WSSD) were underway early in 2002, its parities in power and priorities that have dominated architects launched an effort to promote the creation of intergovernmental discourse over the past decade are multi-stakeholder partnerships that would implement spe- quite visible in these partnerships. cific goals associated with sustainable development. The • The question of how best to follow up on partnerships focus on these partnerships grew in part out of despair that deserves much more critical thought than was possi- conventional intergovernmental diplomacy was unlikely ble leading up to Johannesburg. Effective follow-up to bear fruit in Johannesburg and that some alternative will be constrained by divergent preferences among outcome was necessary to provide the summit with a posi- major stakeholders. tive result. But it also grew out of a deeper strategic understanding, shared not only by key summit organizers but The Partnership Movement also by a broader network of actors involved in implementing sustainable development goals. This strategic under- Academic interest in transnational networks and their in- standing of the importance of partnerships was based on fluence in international affairs and environmental policy a set of realizations that had emerged over recent years. is not new. Networks of transnational actors such as mul- In this article we offer an initial critical assessment of tinational corporations, advocacy organizations, epistemic communities, and bureaucrats are identified as important the partnership strategy, based largely on an examination 1 of the partnerships that emerged from the WSSD. The agents of interdependence and globalization. More re- analysis starts with an overview of theoretical conjectures cently, networks came to be understood not simply as a on the role of partnerships in global governance. It then form of transnational interest organization, but also as a proceeds to evaluate empirically the patterns of WSSD new form of governance. The multi-stakeholder partner- partnership structure and country participation and the ships advanced at the WSSD exemplify a broader phenom- implications for effective governance. Our primary con- enon of transnational governance networks captured also clusions can be summarized as follows: by such rubrics as ‘global public policy networks’, ‘transnational issue networks’, or ‘transnational codes of • The rationale for partnerships, in particular their com- conduct’ that bring together public, private, and societal actors in an effort to agree on and institutionalize a set of parative advantage, is underspecified, and the strat- 2 egy is unlikely to be effective over time unless a more ideas, practices, and norms. coherent understanding is developed. Despite the increasing volume of case studies that examine • The benefits of using the WSSD as a device to pro- transnational partnerships, however, the rationale and com- mote partnerships was very poorly articulated, and parative advantage of such governance networks in relation opportunities for more effective leadership were lost. to other institutions remain underspecified. Most accounts • On balance the partnerships that emerged at the explain multi-stakeholder networks in functionalist terms, WSSD are supply driven rather than demand driven— motivated by demand for more effective governance in the they reflect ongoing implementation efforts more than context of globalization and the failure of states and international organizations to address an increasing number of com- new ideas for bridging core implementation gaps. The 3 promise of relying on partnerships to support a tran- plex issues and transnational spillover effects. Partnerships sition to ‘outcome-based’ decision making will fall flat thus emerge to fill a range of governance functions. They unless a mechanism can be found to steer the partner- enable information diffusion and social learning. They can ship activity in a more demand-driven direction. serve as effective implementation mechanisms by involving CURRENT ISSUES AND KEY THEMES 19 Art_01_Andonova.p65 19 17.07.2003, 23:07 directly affected actors. They facilitate the provision of stakeholder partnerships involve a diverse set of political global public goods via standard setting, norm creation, actors, it remains unclear whether they are always more and even market creation. And finally, networks are said representative of all sectors in society than traditional to address the ‘participation gap’ in global governance by forms of representation such as parties, interests groups, providing direct access for stakeholders to decision-mak- parliaments, and local and national governments. To de- ing. Case studies of multi-stakeholder networks illustrate termine the effectiveness of networks in responding to the these governance functions in a range of areas from pro- participation gap, therefore, it is necessary to determine viding micro-credit for development to management of whether they broaden participation to traditionally dams, to the implementation of the portfolio of the Glo- marginalized groups or whether they perpetuate existing bal Environmental Facility.4 patterns of power and influence. Functionalist accounts of partnerships do not specify, In sum, if the leading functionalist assumption is that however, why or under what conditions partnerships are partnerships emerge in response to demands for more ef- likely to respond to global governance gaps more effec- fective governance where other institutions have failed, we tively than other institutional forms such as states and should expect to see empirical patterns in their structure intergovernmental regimes. In fact, some of the very func- that reflect their comparative advantage: an emphasis on tions attributed to partnerships—supply of information, narrowly defined and implementable issues, a higher con- transparency, and reducing the transaction cost of stand- centration in deadlocked areas of co-operation, higher ard setting and market creation—are also identified as participation by traditionally marginalized actors, and an functions of intergovernmental regimes.5 Under what ability to draw knowledge from across levels of govern- conditions would networks succeed where other institu- ance. Evidence along these lines would support the thesis tions have failed? that networks are demand-driven, emerging out of shared One area where networked structures may have a clear concern for improved governance, and would reveal valu- advantage over hierarchical organizations is in the diffu- able information about their likely effectiveness. sion of knowledge and learning, particularly when such A second aspect of the emergence and role of multi- diffusion needs to tap into multiple levels of expertise.6 The stakeholder networks that is not well specified in the cur- voluntary and often informal character of networks im- rent literature is the question of the political incentives to plies that incentives for strategic manipulations of infor- supply such networks. What interests are likely to initiate, mation may be smaller than in the context of international participate in, and dominate such networks? bargaining, and there may be greater opportunities to Paradoxically, the very international organizations that parcel out knowledge about complex global systems as it are under attack for failing to respond effectively to glo- relates to particular groups and localities. Thus, the greater balization pressures may be most strongly motivated to the complexity and contestation of information and the reinvent their missions and support partnerships. The tra- greater the need to tap into local or specialized knowledge, ditional channels of governance are becoming increasingly the larger will be the comparative advantage of frustrating for international secretariats because of the transnational networks over hierarchical institutions. growing unwillingness of donor countries to provide finan- It is less clear, however, what might be the comparative cial support, a history of failures in implementing assist- advantage of partnerships in international standard set- ance through central government institutions, pressures by ting and implementation. So far, governments and inter- transnational actors for direct inclusion, and legitimacy governmental institutions have maintained a clear advan- assaults by the anti-globalization movement. Thus, con- tage in setting and implementing binding rules. Partner- trary to the conventional functionalist wisdom of partnerships seem to find a ‘niche’ in setting non-binding norms ships as a radically new form of governance, there is rea- and unlocking market mechanisms within governance son to expect many of them to appear as a reinvention of areas deadlocked by competing state interests. By segmen- existing institutions. tation of the regulatory political economy, involving only Transnational advocacy organizations are also likely to a subset of actors, and by allowing for flexible adjustment jump eagerly on the partnership bandwagon. The mismatch of norms, partnerships permit more heterogeneous signals between the growing transnational resources of such organi- to actors and decrease the cost

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